Friday, February 13, 2015

Presenting an Adaptation Paper

Adaptive Presentational Abilities

I
am writing this piece from my hotel room at the Hyatt Regency in Albuquerque,
after having listened to and been inspired by a series of presentations
yesterday at the South West Texas PCA Conference. I look forward to being equally inspired
today.

I
attended several sessions in the “Popular Culture and Pedagogy” strand, many of
which offered well-argued case-studies as to how popular cultural texts could
be used to implement learning strategies in different classrooms, ranging from
K-12 to the tertiary education level. I
congratulate the presenters on their careful, well-prepared work.

On
the other hand, I was a little perturbed to
see that all the presenters adopted precisely the same presentational
strategies. They all came to the
conference armed with PowerPoint presentations, and either read from their
papers or talked directly to the audience, using the slides as an aide-mémoire.

PowerPoint is a useful mode of communication, but it
should be used sparingly. There are a
few basic rules for making slides, which many of the presenters could do well
to learn:

Slides should be not too colorful, nor contain too many images. This simply distracts the audience from the topic in hand.

Slides should contain a MINIMUM of written text

The font used in this written text should be sufficiently large, so that audiences in a large conference hall can read it

Images should be sharp, concise and reinforce the arguments presented

Perhaps more importantly, what I think all presenters
should learn is that PowerPoint is not a substitute for the
presentation, but a means of helping audiences understand what the basic
arguments are. It should not distract
but reinforce the attention.

Such observations might seem clichéd, but they need to
be borne in mind whenever a presentation is being prepared.

More importantly, most of the presenters need to learn
how to communicate with their audiences. They need to adapt themselves; to refine their
techniques and understand that they are supposed to be entering into a dialogue. I heard a lot yesterday about the importance of
this intangible concept known as “critical thinking” – perhaps the focus of
attention should be shifted instead to the more practical (and measurable)
ability of “effective presentation abilities.”
These include:-

Look at your audience while you are speaking and try to gauge their reactions. If their attention wanders, try to recover it by looking at people and smiling;

Do NOT read from a paper if at all possible. Use a series of bullet-points that you can talk around. Audiences need to understand the basic framework of the argument, rather than the critical apparatus surrounding it

Speak SLOWLY and CLEARLY. You might be nervous about talking in front of a group, but try to overcome those nerves through deep breaths. Focus your attention on one object or person in the room, and imagine you are speaking to them in a one-to-one situation.

Try to MOVE about the room. Audiences will need to follow you as you speak, and this helps to sustain their attention;

A presentation, as opposed to an academic paper, needs to be SHORT and CONCISE. You do not need to fill it with reference after reference, but focus instead on the argument.

Most of these abilities are taught at the
undergraduate level in courses such as composition, but they need to be
continually reinforced. By learning to
adapt through such abilities, speakers can communicate their personalities to
audiences and thereby provide the framework for further dialogue. This can lead to further opportunities for
learning, both for speakers and their interlocutors.

Sometimes I tell my learners to imagine they are about
to dive off a high board into the sea, or a pool. Either they can look down and worry about
what will happen, or they can jump off and see what happens. The latter option might seem high-risk, but
provides an opportunity for mental as well as personal growth through
adaptation; in other words, taking advantage of a learning experience as a way
of improving oneself.

It would be nice to
see more people, especially early career academics, taking this recommendation
to heart.

1 comment:

I have begun to study the posts to this blog and look forward to reading, in due course, the books and articles by Professor Raw, especially on the theme of adaptation, as I am currently trying to find the time (outside my teaching and translating responsibilities, currently quite onerous!) to complete a planned monograph on the abridgement and other adaptation processes applied to JUles Verne's literature, in order to adapt it to the needs of such specific readership segments as younger readers and EFL learners using an adapted Verne novel (simultaneously translated, but in reduced form) from French into ENglish. I had several chapters of my doctoral thesis on Verne translation which dealt specifically with abridged versions of Verne's works, and which had to be ultimately deleted from my thesis prior to submission, owing to word limits, and also in order to keep the focus of the thesis on complete, unabridged renderings of Verne. So I am trying to cross the bridge from my existing discipline of literary translation studies into that of literary adaptation across languages. I am currently studying Catrysse's monograph on DAS while also beginning to study Professor Raw's work on adaptation. A lot to be learnt but I look forward to the journey! THank you once again, Professor Raw, for drawing my attention to your blog. Now here's hoping I can find the time to whip this monograph into shape and that it may, in the fullness of time, be accepted for publication.